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Lazarus is set in the near future and society has turned toward a nearly feudal system. Wealthy families control the world instead of politics and citizens are divided up into classes: Family, Surfs, and the Waste. Each family has a Lazarus - a "sword and shield" - given all the biological advantages the future can offer and tasked with protecting the Family. This is the story of the Lazarus: Forever Carlyle.

From the beginning, the reader gets a look at just how powerful the Lazarus can be as Forever deals with intruders at one of her family's facilities. But from her visit to the Family doctor afterward, we find a person much more conflicted with her role than the cold hearted warrior she's expected to be. The doctor, speaking with one of her family members, suggest that to help her emotionally, they must show her the love she needs in addition to simply prescribing meds. A superficial attempt is made, which seems more odd than caring to Forever, and in no time she is once again being treated as little more than a tool.

Rucka does a fine job setting up the world and introducing the players. He leaves you with a solid understanding of how the different classes of society view one another as well as a glimpse of Forever's internal moral dilemma that looks to drive the story. Lark's artwork is dynamic, handling both action and calm with equal skill. Forever stands as an imposing figure in her scenes, appearing taller, stronger and calmer than those around here. Arcas' colors add to the atmosphere with each scene receiving its own color pallet. My one complaint about art would fall to a series of narration boxes from two different people both colored the same. I would have preferred a hint of color showing two different people were having a discussion, but in the end it wasn't terribly distracting.

I definitely recommend picking this issue up and seeing where the series takes you. It looks to be an amazing ride with one of the more badass protagonists I've seen in recent years. If you are a fan of Rucka's work, or just a fan of realistically approached sci-fi, you'll enjoy it.

Image continues to line up its murderer’s row of talent as Greg Rucka and Michael Lark launch a brand new sci-fi series. And, surprise, surprise, it’s really good. Set in a dystopian future that has shown America go to an almost feudal system, with only a few families controlling all of the wealth and resources. As Rucka says in the essay at the back, this is the idea of the 99% and 1% taken to the extreme. In the world of Lazarus, the 99.99% control everything. Each family has one enforcer who is imbued with superpowers, such as the ability to come back from the dead. Hence the name Lazarus.

Our main character here is the Lazarus for the Carlyle family, Forever. She seems like an interesting character, yes, she’s another typical Greg Rucka ‘strong female character’, but the sci-fi setting makes things different, as does the fact that Rucka seems cognizant of his own clichés in the back-matter. It’s early days here of course, but it’s clear that Forever (or Eve) has misgivings about her role in the world, and about the status quo in general. Her brother and her doctor are obviously manipulating her. This is a very intriguing sci-fi world, and I’m very interested to see it get fleshed out by Rucka and Lark. We only get hints of it in this first issue, but you can tell there’s a lot going on. I’m particularly interested in what’s going on with Forever’s parents, her dad is mentioned ominously a few times.

Lark’s artwork is fantastic as usual, I’ve been a big fan of his work for a long time, and it’s great to see him work on his own concepts, and of course, he and Rucka have a great working relationship going back to Gotham Central.

This is another great new title from Image, they are on such a hot-streak right now. Get in on the ground floor with this. People often talk about how the best science-fiction has it’s basis in the real world, and this book is heavily tied into our current economic woes, as well as some real world science. This is going to be big.